My question is, when done with a bunch of scouts, how much do you have to worry about overwhelming the pot and dragging down the temperature of the water? Is the 13 minute cooking time reliable?

Reason I'm asking is that my daughter's girl scout troop is going camping at the end of the month (40 girls, not patrol cooking yet) and we want to try this as a group. And I don't want it to fail miserably.

Very good way of making breakfast in camp. Not sure about 13 minutes. I would practice at home first. a Soft boiled large egg needs 4 minutes,hard boiled 8-10 minutes. If you put too many in together, the water temperature will drop a lot and you would need to bring it back to 100C before timing. I shudder to think how you would distinguish 40 different omlettes, each placed in the water at a different time:)

With multiple pots and multiple stoves you will need multiple cooks to tend each one. Perhaps you could have the designated cooks attend a cooking demonstration just prior to doing it themselves, so they can see how it is done and it will be fresh in their minds.

These are good questions to ask. While the cook eggs in a bag is a neat thing to do with scouts, it isn't very practical for a large group. All recipes, and cooking techniques need to take into account group size. I would recommend you do this as a demonstration and not for making food for 40 people. In fact cooking for 40 people is not an easy task on a camping trip without significant help.

Looks like you already did it. I would recommend cooking it in shifts, but looks like you did that. The biggest problem I had, when doing this, was making sure the bags didn't burn on the top of the pot. But, when I did it, we had 5 or 6 people, not 40!

_________________________
I've taken a vow of poverty. To annoy me, send money.

I've cooked breakfast for forty hungry hikers on a couple of Coleman stoves. I had everything carefully prepped, but it was still a job I don't want to repeat.

I can't imagine trying to do that with a whole troop of scouts and a backpacking stove.

My experience with scouts is limited, but I know we cooked in "patrols" (groups of four to six). That worked well and I'd certainly recommend it. It also gets more boys involved in the cooking. And that's a very good skill to learn. best, jcp